Superhero story stronger than it seems

Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 11:23 PM

Aaron Johnson and Chloe Moretz star as two costumed vigilantes, Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl, respectively, who fight crime in “Kick-Ass.” Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.

The premise of “Kick-Ass” sounds ridiculous. It’s a movie about a teenage comic book dweeb who decides to put on a costume and become a superhero named Kick-Ass. He has no powers or training, he has no high-tech gadgets and he doesn’t have a cape. But the action-packed movie feels hip like Tarantino and funny like Apatow as it bursts with its own incredibly fresh style.

The genre-blurring movie pushes limits, but it also recognizes its own silliness. As hilarious as it is gory, “Kick-Ass” is a great mix of real-life superheroes and offbeat humor.

Aaron Johnson (“Nowhere Boy”) plays Dave Lizewski, an awkward and unpopular high school student. Dave’s life is a monotonous blur of comics and school. He has a crush on Katie Deauxma, who is played by Lyndsy Fonseca, but she wants nothing to do with him. He has two friends, daydreams about his teacher in class and spends a lot of time on the Internet. But everything changes when Dave puts on a costume and becomes a masked crime fighter. Wearing a green scuba suit and wielding a baton, Dave transforms into Kick-Ass. But don’t let the superhero charm mislead you — Kick-Ass’ first crime-stopping experience gets him stabbed in the stomach and hit by a car.

After healing from his wounds, Dave returns to school, where his crush Katie is awfully nice to him. Dave thinks he’s awesome until his friend informs him that there’s a rumor going around school that he is gay. Appalled at first, Dave decides to roll with the rumor and he quickly becomes Katie’s gay best friend.

Meanwhile, Kick-Ass returns to the streets and accidentally finds himself in the middle of a fight. As three men begin beating another man, Kick-Ass comes to the rescue with his batons swinging. He takes some brutal blows but Kick-Ass successfully stops the men after a wild melee. His first victory against crime is also captured on camera and posted to YouTube, where it becomes the most popular video yet.

With his newfound notoriety, Kick-Ass meets two other masked avengers, Hit-Girl and Big Daddy. Chloe Moretz (“500 Days of Summer”) plays Hit-Girl, a razor-tongued 11-year-old who shoots and slices her way through the movie. Her foul language is great and her hyper-violent tendencies are well-timed. There is just something amusing about seeing a little girl cuss like a sailor and kill more people than Stallone in “Rocky.” Nicholas Cage (“Bad Lieutenant”) plays Big Daddy, the gun-toting ex-cop who has a particular distaste for mob boss Frank D’Amico, played by Mark Strong (“Sherlock Holmes”). By day, Big Daddy trains Hit-Girl and plans a takedown of D’Amico’s operation. By night, he pulverizes mobsters and talks like William Shatner.

D’Amico eventually gets wise to Big Daddy’s plans and sends his nerdy son out in an elaborate scheme to trap the superheroes. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (“Superbad”) plays Chris D’Amico, a gawky teen who becomes the scarlet-clad Red Mist. The trickery of Red Mist results in the mob’s capture of Kick-Ass and Big Daddy, followed by a hail of bullet and blades as Hit-Girl exacts revenge.

Director Matthew Vaughn (“Stardust”) has created a wonderful movie full of hysterical dialogue, great actors and action sequences that stunningly blend choreography and computer graphics. The movie gets hilariously entertaining mileage out of the teenage superhero plot and brings a new breed of superheroes to the screen. Vaughn based the film off of “Kick-Ass,” a comic book created by wonder-scribe Mark Millar and acclaimed artist John Romita, Jr. The Marvel heavyweights were closely involved in the film as executive producers.

‘Kick-Ass’

Release Date: April 16

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Starring: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloe Moretz and Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama

Rating: R for strong, brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and some drug use involving children

Grade: A-